The Anthology of Time and Death
by LiteraryAdventurer
Summary: The Captain always goes down with the ship.
1. Denial

_**Denial.**_

She was human wrapped in armor. Flesh infused with machine.

The pain of silence deafened Seven of Nine, formally a drone from Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One and the absence of voices pushed her to the precipice of madness.

Captain Kathryn Janeway, the woman her pulled her from a comfortable existence and thrust her into this nightmare stared intently at the keypad in front of her as her nimble fingers typed in the authorization code required to access the inside of the cell.

_If only glares could kill, Seven thought to herself, Kathryn Janeway would be dead a thousand times over. _

"What are you doing?" She snarled, her fists tightening at her sides. She could feel the muscles in her arms tighten. It felt…wrong. She felt damaged.

Janeway stopped, her eyes staring intensely at the drone before replying, "I'm coming in."

Seven replied without hesitation.

"I'll kill you."

The Captain's eyes were calculating. Her mind was analyzing the risk, contemplating whether Seven of Nine would do as she had threatened.

With the tiniest hardening of her jaw, Janeway visibly came to a decision, staring directly into the eyes of Seven of Nine who up until a few hours ago had been a thoughtless and ruthless Borg Drone.

"I don't think you will."

And with those simple words she was inside, holding out a PADD to the drone and expecting her to overcome the nanoprobes swimming through her veins and accept her humanity.

Seven of Nine stared. This woman was small and aged. She was far from perfect. Her brown hair was tied into a severe knot behind her head and she had small stress lines branching out from the corner of her eyes. She carried a heavy burden, Seven could see it in the way she forced her shoulders to stand tall. She was a woman carrying guilt, anxiety and a dozen other emotions.

If she were to go swimming, Seven was sure she would drown under the weight.

"The weight of the world." Seven said, interrupting Janeway's explanation of how she found Seven of Nine's original identity, Annika Hanson.

The Captain stuttered to a halt and looked at her with wide, confused eyes.  
"What?"

Seven pulled the memory from deep within her stores.  
"It is an Earth saying is it not?" She asked, hands behind her back with a raised eyebrow, "For someone with much responsibility?"

Janeway, still confused, nodded.  
"Yes, it's something that humans tend to say when someone is stressed."

Seven nodded, understanding. She reached out a hand tentatively, her fingers gently touching the lines under the Captain's eyes.  
"You carry your world."

Janeway, deprived of love and touch for so many years, felt her eyes flutter involuntarily shut at the gentle touch. As Seven's mechanical fingers gently touched the cool, pinkish skin, there was an audible snap.

Kathryn Janeway's eyes were open in timeless surprise as her body slid to the floor of the cell. Seven's hand released her grip on the Captain's neck as the weight intensified on her fingers and she watched the form hit the ground with a satisfying thump.

"You are weak." She said calmly as alarms blared within the brig and officers surrounded her, shouting.

For a second, with the chaos that had overcome the bridge, Seven felt as if she were back in the collective.

She could imagine the Borg Queen standing in front of her, a gentle, loving smile on her face as she looked at her faithful drone.

_You have done well, Seven Of Nine._ _Now it's time to come home._

The officer, Chakotay stood before her, his eyes cold as his finger pulled on the trigger of his weapon.

In flash of light, Seven of Nine, formally of Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One, was gone.


	2. Anger

_**Anger. **_

The Captain _always_ goes down with the ship.

It isn't an official policy of Starfleet to dictate the death of their Captains, but it has always been an unspoken expectation. If the ship needs someone to complete a mission in its last moments before destruction, it fell to the Captain to give the vessel the help it needs. It has never been negotiable.

"I thought death would be a little more painful." Captain Kathryn Janeway mused as she sat patiently in the command chair of Voyager, watching the debris of the real Voyager fly past the viewscreen.

"Death is what you make of it." Her father answered, sitting in the chair usually taken by her first officer.

Kathryn Janeway nodded, not looking at him at all.

She linked her fingers together, watching the smaller ships that contained the rest of her command crew fly in and out of the debris.

_No doubt running scans_, she thought to herself with a smirk. They wouldn't find anything. She was well and truly dead. Voyager had collided with the Krenim Timeship in a ball of fire. She had died at the first touch of the two powerful vessels.

"Did time revert?" She asked, watching as the smaller ships started to move away. Her father didn't even blink.  
"It did. The original timeline has been restored. This alternate universe was created the second the timeship imploded. It is unstable. It will collapse before your crew have time to leave the area."

"So every time we change the timeline," Janeway mused, interested, "A new reality is created?"

Her father nodded.  
"Most of them are unstable. The main timeline is supported by the space and time continuum. These universal fractures will begin to fray until they break apart completely. It only takes a few minutes."

"So we will all cease to exist?" She asked, watching with interest as secondary explosions ripped through the Krenim Timeship.  
Her father nodded, turning to her. He reached out his hand and gently gripped her own.  
"Unless you choose to come with me." He said it softly, but there was an edge of steel in his voice that made Janeway quiver.  
"You're not my father." She said flatly. She knew who he was the second he sat down, but it didn't stop the feeling of bitter disappointment from filling her.

"No." He said with the slight upturn of his lips. "My Matrix transcends this continuum. I have the ability to move between decaying timelines. Those that come with me have the opportunity to continue existing."

"How many of my crew do you have already?" She asked, leaving her cold hand in his. He studied her closely.  
"From other timelines - forty." He replied, "From this timeline, sixteen. If you choose to join me, you will be the first Kathryn Janeway."

"The others have chosen to die?" Kathryn asked with a raised eyebrow.  
"You are already dead, Kathryn," He replied bluntly, "The others simply decided that they would prefer to disappear rather then continue with this existence."

"Is that what will happen to me if I say no?"

The alien imitating her father smiled sadly.  
"Yes. Many Kathryn Janeways have been claimed by the universe in too many realities."

"No Starfleet Captain can avoid death." Kathryn recited, remembering her Starship Command Exam in Spock's training simulator. It was one of the few things that remained despite the extensive changes made to Starfleet since the Kirk era.

"That's right Kathryn,"

Janeway felt her jaw set as a decision came to mind. She was disillusioned by this reality. She would be the dutiful Captain and go with this alien to his matrix. Maybe there she would finally feel some peace.

As she sat, looking into the eyes of this alien, she forced herself for a moment, for a split second in this degrading reality to believe it was really her father, here to collect her at her point of death.  
"Let's go daddy." She said, grasping his hand tightly as a bright, white light erupted from where the turbo lift would live on the real Voyager.

The alien smiled, standing and gently pulling the Captain to her feet.

"Your sacrifice is noble," He said gently. Was it possible this alien was feeling compassion for the newly deceased Captain?

"I have one question for you," she asked tiredly, looking into the blinding light. The alien stopped on the precipice to look back at her. His face was a mixture of excitement and anxiety.

"Yes?"

"Where is my real father?" She asked, her eyes looking into the bright void in vain hope of seeing another familiar face.  
The alien smiled.

"He is within, of course."

Kathryn Janeway nodded, watching as the light in front of her intensified. As she stepped into the matrix, she felt something surge within her. The white world to which she was ensconced was suddenly diluted with rays of purple. Something was wrong.

"What's happening?" The alien cried, clutching his stomach in something similar to pain as he fell to his knees. White tendrils wrapped in purple were reaching for her, draining her of energy as the world around them pulsed in time with the expanding poison.

"You didn't think I would go quietly, did you?" Kathryn Janeway asked incredulously, falling to her knees beside the alien as the toxin began to infect her system.

"I'm afraid." The alien admitted, slouching lower to the ground, his words reminding her of ones said not too many years ago by something else intent on keeping her forever.  
Janeway smiled.

_"I know."_


	3. Bargaining

_**Bargaining.**_

Her skin had deep green hue as she pulled herself painfully to her feet. Her veins were black, spiraling across her pale arms. The world was spinning around her as she attempted to bring it back into focus.

Thousands of voices echoed throughout her skull. Surprisingly, she wasn't scared, instead she felt exhilarated.

Alive.

One voice, strong and male stood out amongst the thousands.  
"Voyager remains within transporter range. Their shields are structurally weakened – we can transport Janeway and break pursuit."

The Queen looked intensely at her hands, a thoughtful smile breaking out across her metallic features. A decade ago the Borg tried endlessly to stop her getting what she really wanted – now it seems they were falling over themselves to give her what she needed.

"Do it."

Light erupted from the floor in front of her as Kathryn Janeway, the Captain of Voyager appeared on the floor before her. She appeared confused, visibly adjusting to the instantaneous transition from the bridge of her ship to the shadows of a Borg Cube.

The Queen raised her arms in welcome, her face breaking out in a triumphant grin as she took in the ruffled appearance of her counterpart.  
"So," she said with an almost theatrical flourish, "we meet again, Captain Janeway."

Janeway's features visibly tightened, her jaw setting in a stern line. The Queen could tell she had analyzed the situation the second she arrived and quickly grasped her dire predicament. Voyager would not be able to break out of the trans-warp hub to return for her. They were too far in, trapped in the pressurized gravity of the tubes that were propelling the ship across the galaxy. To attempt a mid-warp turn-around would surely result in the ships' destruction.

"What do you want?" the Captain asked, her eyes narrowing, hatred radiating from her in waves. The Queen stepped forward, her smile as sweet as she could make it;

"I want you, of course."

Kathryn Janeway squared her shoulders.  
"You were assimilated." She said coolly, her eyes lingering on the Queen's silver implants.  
"You knew I would be." The Queen replied, leaning against the elevated regeneration chamber in the center of the room. She was amused; the Captain would never have expected that the reason for Voyager's survival would also be the cause of her death.

"I didn't expect you to survive." Kathryn replied coolly.

"Or to become the next Borg Queen I can safely assume."

Admiral Kathryn Janeway stepped toward the younger version of herself with a smirk.

"You were always willing to sacrifice yourself and everyone around you to do the right thing," the Admiral approached the Captain with the look of a lion stalking its prey "Upholding your precious Starfleet principles."

"They were once your principles too." The younger Janeway said tightly, "Or with your assimilation have you completely forgotten your roots?"

The Queen smiled fondly.  
"I remember." She said with an attempt at warmth. It made her voice sound tinny, similar to a pin dropping in an empty room. "That's why you're here."

The younger Janeway raised an eyebrow, enticing the Queen to continue.  
"Why?" She asked, crossing her arms in front of her. For most aliens they had encountered of Voyager, this would be enough for even their strongest leaders to fidget.

"Well," The Queen continued, unfazed, "think how unbeatable the Borg will be with two Kathryn Janeways' at the helm?"

"There can only be one Queen." The Captain said with a tight glare. Her eyes were raking the walls seeking the impossible escape.

Hell, she'd pulled off impossible before; this was just another day at the office.

Admiral Janeway stepped closer, her voice taking on an almost caring tone.

"Are you afraid?"

Captain Kathryn Janeway felt her stare harden into steel, "I'm not afraid to die."  
The Queen smiled as tubules extended from her hand and ripped their way into the other woman's neck. The Captain screamed, the pain unbearable as her head snapped back and nanoprobes filled her system.

"You won't die," the former Admiral whispered, looking deeply into the wide eyes of her younger self, "You'll live…"

Captain Kathryn Janeway fell to her knees, the tubules still in her neck as the flesh on her face exploded with mechanical implants.

"_Forever_."


	4. Depression

_**Depression**_

Authors Note: Thanks for the lovely reviews!

It wasn't a fitting end for a Starship Captain, Kathryn Janeway thought ruefully to herself as she stared into the sky, blood pooling underneath her from the gaping hole on her torso.

Her mind was askew, drunk without a drink, her body feebly pumping the last of her precious blood supplies through her emptied veins.

Someone was gripping her hand, talking to her a voice edged with panic.

_"Stay with us Kathryn. Don't die on us now, god damnit!" _

If she could have, she would have smiled softly at them and told them it was okay, _death comes for all of us, after all. _But she couldn't. Her mouth was stuck closed, everything about her was numb and as she stared into the clouds above she felt like her last tendrils of life were withdrawing, leaving behind a hollowed husk for her team members to take away.

'_What happened to you?' _

Oh there he was. She was lying on a grassy knoll, her face warmed by the sun as someone lay behind her, entwining their fingers in her own.

_'I think I died.' _Janeway replied, rolling over with a smile and resting her head on Justin's shoulder.

_'How?'_

Kathryn let out a small laugh.

'_In the way all good Captains should go out. Protecting their ship and their crew.' _

Justin stretched, his hand coming toward her face to gently push back a stray hair, his expression a relaxed smile.

'_You're not a Captain quite yet, Kathy.' _He said with a wink, '_Just one in training'._

'_Well this Captain in Training just passed Spock's Starship Command Track exam.' _

'_You mean you're in?' _Justin asked, his smile becoming a grin.

"_I'm in." _Kathryn said with a grin as Justin cheered, tightening his arms around her and rolling her across the grass as she laughed.

"What happened to you?"

Kathryn shook her head, cleaning the cobwebs out her mind as she looked up at her first officer. Chakotay was staring at her, concerned, a PADD griped tightly in his fingers.

Kathryn looked across her desk, locating her favorite cup with her eyes and reaching to shove it in her ready room replicator.

"Coffee, black."

The replicator lit for a second before she removed the now warm cup full of brown liquid and moved over to her couch, taking a sip of the heavenly liquid as she settled herself.

"Kathryn?" Chakotay came to sit next to her as she patted the space with her hand, an unspoken request he accepted without a thought.

"The negotiations broke down." She answered finally with a restrained sigh.

Her first officer raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I guessed."

"It looks like the Karoban people aren't looking to trade." The Captain continued, rubbing her sore neck with one hand as she took another sip of her coffee. "When we got there they had already been approached and seemingly warned we were coming. They didn't even want to hear us out, they opted to shoot first, as questions later."

"They had jamming technology." Chakotay stated, remembering the terrifying moment on the bridge when they found they couldn't beam the away team back to Voyager.

"It seems someone in the quadrant doesn't want us getting back to Earth." Janeway replied, leaning back into the comfort of the cushions, shooting Chakotay a tired, tight smile.

"I thought we wouldn't get you back." The first officer continued, looking down as his weathered, worn knuckles. Janeway and her team had broken the jamming device, allowing Voyager to beam them back to the ship but not before considerable sacrifice. Kathryn had been trapped in an explosion at the facility with Seven the smoke had cleared on the beaming platform to reveal a bloodied Seven of Nine clutching an even bloodier Captain Janeway.

"You did." Kathyn replied, sensing his pain and reaching over to gently grip his clenched hands, "The doctor had to piece me back together again, but here we are, we survived."

"Head towards home?" Chakotay asked with a smile, momentarily tightening his hands around the Captains before standing up.

"Steer this ship towards to the Alpha Quadrant," She said with a grin, taking his outstretched hand and pulling herself to her feet, "and don't look back."

"What happened?" Seven of Nine asked with her usual sharp tongue as the leadership group settled into their chairs around the table.

"At 0300," Chakotay said with a sigh, "During a survey of a world with significant underground deposits of dilithium, the away team were attacked by an unknown, hostile force. Ensign Markham was killed by propulsion weaponry and Captain Janeway was kidnapped. It seems there was a jammer activated on the planet shortly after she was taken. We managed to get the remaining team back to Voyager but the Captain's bio-signature is being blocked by a similar device we saw on the Keroban home-planet."

There was an uncomfortable silence at the table.

"What do they want with the Captain?" Tom Paris asked, frowning at the news that Kathryn Janeway was being held captive.

"We don't know." Chakotay answered, scrolling down the PADD in front of him.

"How are we going to get her out?" B'Elanna was next to ask, her eyes scanning the holo-planet looking for a weak point.

"I'm ordering two away teams to take shuttles down to the planet." The Commander answered, "Fully armed. A scan of the planet indicates that they've taken the Captain underground. We'll be using Voyager's torpedoes to make a targeted blast on the planets surface – breaking an entrance for the teams to enter and retrieve the hostage."

"Previous interactions with this unknown race," Seven said, picking up in the momentary silence after Chakotay, "Indicates they are technologically at a level similarly to Earth in the 21st century. We can expect projectile weaponry and primitive defenses."

"That jammer doesn't seem to primitive." B'Elanna said with a frown. Seven looked at her sharply. _She really does look like an ice queen, Chakotay thought to himself. _

"The jammer we destroyed on the Keroban home planet was of simple mechanical design based no doubt on previous experiences with hostile advanced races."

"Seven," Chakotay interjected before B'Elanna's prominent vein in her forehead grew any larger, "You're leading away team one. Tuvok, you're leading away team two. Let's get her back people."

"What happened?" Janeway asked weakly, blood bubbling out the side of her mouth as her lungs struggled to take in air.

"You were captured by a race known as the Tran Captain," Seven of Nine said softly, lifting the weak, bloody body of Kathryn Janeway into her arms.

"They blamed Voyager for the increased presence of the Borg in the Delta Quadrant. They planned an ambush for you when the away team came to inspect dilithium deposits. You were taken to their underground caverns and have been tortured extensively. We are here to rescue you."

Janeway rested her head against the warm torso carrying her weakened frame and closed her eyes against the world, which was moving far too quickly around her for her stomach to handle.

She was in a cell, she remembered. The leader of the Tran, a ruthless military leader who hadn't even given her his name had stormed in, slapping her painfully across the face the second he stepped inside the cramped, dirty space. She hadn't fallen to her knees, the pain left her reeling but she held her ground. She had turned her head back to him, her cheek a stark red, her eyes full of water she refused to shed and her hair loose across her face and it had infuriated him. The next thing she knew she was on the ground and his boot was kicking her repeatedly.

She had heard the snap of her ribs shattering, the piercing pain of one driving through her lungs and other internal organs. He was screaming at her, spittle flying from his lips but she couldn't hear. His kicks kept coming; he pulled her up by the collar of her uniform and pushed her against the wall where her head collided painfully with the wall behind it. Galaxies spun lazily in front of her eyes, solar systems and stars making a universal journey across her consciousness as she slid ungracefully to the floor.

She sat there for several hours – she wasn't sure where the Tran had gone, but she couldn't move. When sirens started to scream, the world around her shuddered and he rushed back in, his lips a thin, cruel line as he raised his weapon and with a single pop, she felt excruciating pain fill her, radiating from here he had just fired into her stomach, hot blood pumping out onto her fingers. Her front was warm, her own life force pouring out over her but her back was warm as the Tran leader fell to his knees, a look of surprise on his features as Seven of Nine walked past his body and pulled the weakened Captain into her strong arms.

"How are you progressing disabling the jamming device?" Seven asked into her comm badge. B'Elanna's stressed voice sounded around them.  
"We're making progress, we're under fire from soldiers around here – I need another ten minutes!"

"Act as quickly as you can," Seven replied, looking for a second worriedly down to the Captain who was zoning in and out of consciousness in her arms, "The Captain may not have that long."

"_What Happened?" _

Chakotay and the Doctor were hovering above her as the sky spun lazily in and out of focus.

"The Tran shot her." Seven of Nine answered, her voice disembodied and coming from somewhere out of sight "They also beat her severely. B'Elanna is attempting to destroy the jamming device. She expects it will be another few minutes."

"I don't think we have that long." The doctor answered tersely, running a scanner over the Captain.

"She'll be fine won't she Doctor?" The Commander asked, his voice alarmed.

Kathryn stared past him, up into the sky above. Somewhere above that blue sky was Voyager. From here, a distant guiding star.

She could hear her something thumping in her ears and she felt both warm and clammy, stars drifting across her vision.

"Damnit B'Elanna," she heard Chakotay yell, "We need that jammer down, _now!"_

_It's too late. _Janeway urged to say. _I'm already dead. _

The sun should have been blinding, it was a sunny day with a brilliant blue sky on this godforsaken planet, but instead the world was coated in a wash of light grey, dulling everything and everyone.

The world looked as it did when she would stare out the window of her childhood home at Christmas time, the frost from the night hardened into ice on her window, blurring everything outside.

Someone was taking again and in the distance she could hear gunshots, similar to the one that was taken into her stomach.

If she reached out, as she tried to do but her limbs were already dead, she was sure she could reach Voyager. To pull it into her arms and protect it from the universe.

_I have unfinished business here. _She sighed to herself as she imagined Voyager flying across her consciousness.

"_Stay with us Kathryn. Don't die on us now, god damnit!"_

But Kathryn Janeway, Captain of the Starship Voyager was already dead.


End file.
